A Hundred Storms
Chapter Ten: We drank a Toast to Innocence
We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
And tried to reach beyondthe emptiness
But neither one knew how.
-Same Old Lang Syne, by Dan Fogelberg
Hermione spent the rest of her Friday in a state of mind that could only be described as conscious. She responded when people spoke to her and took notes in class, but essentially her mind was still back in her bedroom and dwelling over the latest headache that was Draco Malfoy.
Apart from being a prat, which was the norm for him, Hermione felt like he was trying to tell her something. He all but confessed to murder in the cold blood, and yet Hermione didn't feel the disgust that she was sure should be taking over her every thought. In fact, it was the opposite. Hermione felt a huge sense of loss and sorrow for him, a feeling she only recently attributed to Harry and Ron for their respective losses of Sirius and Fred. As far as Hermione knew, Draco didn't physically lose anyone in the war unless you counted his incarcerated father. Not to mention, why on earth would he actuallytell her something as serious as committing a murder? It wasn't as though they were friends, they were hardly even friendly, and yet Hermione knew that he was trusting her to keep his secret, to choose his side rather than the moral high ground Hermione was itching to travel. But what good would it do to report him now? If anything there would be another trial, but without a body, even a muggle body, there was no true evidence of a crime. Hermione had to confess, if just to herself, that she was tired of trials and accusations and pleads of innocence. She felt for the nameless muggle, and she didn't even know if they were male or female, adult or child, but she simply didn't have enough fight left in her to pursue the appropriate course of justice.
As Hermione lay down Friday night in anticipation for her lunch date with Ron and Harry, she couldn't help but wonder why Malfoy was bothering with her at all. She couldn't imagine that he felt some sort of bond between them over what happened in his drawing room, nor could she believe that he felt guilt on behalf of his deceased aunt. Hermione wanted to chalk it all up to some sort of twisted game, but the concern and anger he displayed towards her was real enough, and you only show concern or anger to someone that affects your own being on a certain level.
Hermione gave up that train of thought and focused on another. She was a logical person, after all. If one pattern of thought did not yield results then certainly another ought to. She then tried to put into words exactly what made her testify on his behalf. Of course she had her reasons, his facial expressions, which she focused on while under crucio, had been that of a slipping mask. She knew that underneath it all he did not want to watch her be tortured anymore than she wanted to feel it. That wasn't exactly reason enough for an acquittal, however, and Hermione knew there was more. He was a child, truly, when the weight of his father's world came upon him. Then again, so was Harry, so was Ron, not to mention Hermione herself. They were all children when they made their choices, so what made the guilty Draco, who was the cause of so much hardship, truly an innocent deep down?
That train of thought led Hermione to contemplate innocence as a whole. She would like to believe herself innocent of any wrong doing, but she wouldn't lie to herself. She wiped the memories of not only her parents, but nameless deatheaters in her haste to protect herself and those she loved. In retrospect, was that an innocent action of someone in the right, or a deliberate action of someone playing God?
It was at this mental crossroad that Hermione flipped onto her stomach, screamed into her pillow, rolled back over and rose from her bed. She walked over to the fireplace and put her hand against the mantle. After a moment she came to a decision and whispered into the dark room; "Winky?"
With a small crack, a tiny house-elf appeared and looked up to Hermione with her huge brown eyes.
"Miss Hermione!" Winky said with a small clap of delight. "Winky is most happy to be seeing you!"
Hermione smiled. "Thank you Winky, I'm happy to see you, too. How have you been?"
"Better, Miss Hermione," was Winky's careful answer. "Winky is not drinking so much butterbeer anymore."
"I'm glad to hear it," Hermione said truthfully. "I'm glad you're still at Hogwarts."
"Hogwarts is my home now, Miss Hermione," Winky said solemnly. "Winky is never leaving."
"That's wonderful, Winky," Hermione said. "I was wondering if you would do a favor for me?"
Winky nodded eagerly and Hermione continued. "Would you might popping down to the hospital wing and picking up a bottle of dreamless sleep potion for me? There should be several bottles with my name on them in the potions cabinet."
"Yes, yes Miss Hermione, Winky will be right back!" Said the little elf and with another quiet crack, she was gone.
Hermione walked back to the bed and sank down on the side. Before she even had time to situate herself, Winky was back with a bottle in hand. Hermione made sure Madam Pomfrey's neat handwriting clearly displayed her name on a crisp white label before thanking Winky and downing the contents of the bottle. Winky said goodnight and Hermione only barely registered the departure before her head hit the pillow, pulling her into a blissfully uneventful sleep.
Hermione woke the next morning with the sun bravely shining into her room through a crack in the heavy draperies. She sat up in bed and stretched, feeling the satisfying full night of sleep throughout her normally tired body. A quick glance at her clock let her know that breakfast was underway, but she was impatient to leave the castle and finally see her friends she missed so much. She showered, dressed, and read through several chapters of her potions text before it was a decent time to begin a leisurely walk into the village.
Hermione exited the castle and began on the path to Hogsmeade, thinking about how odd it was to make the venture alone. Thanks to her status as an eighth year student, she didn't need to wait for a sanctioned Hogsmeade weekend. The closer she got to the village, the more her spirits began to soar. Of course, she was still very cross with Harry and Ron for feeling the need to check on her twice daily, but they were an intricate port of her being, and being separated from them hurt on a physical level.
The village was not as crowded as Hermione was accustomed to, having never been there without the normal throng of other Hogwarts students, except for the one time the three of them apparated into the village when it was still under deatheater control. Hermione could still see the after-effects of the deatheaters, a few shops still had boarded windows as though ready for a storm. As she walked further into the town she caught sight of a few scraps of parchment still plastered to random surfaces, Harry's picture, as well as her own, looked up at her from various places around the village. Hermione wondered why Ron never achieved the notoriety the other two had managed. Perhaps it was thanks to his own blood status, and the fact that his involvement was little know during the whole ordeal.
Hermione smiled at the few shops that were open for business on the crisp autumn morning. Their doors were thrown bravely open to urge both the fresh air and patrons into the shops. Hermione strolled along the road until she came to Madam Rosmerta's establishment, The Three Broomsticks. She ducked inside and found a small table near the back in a corner no one would stumble into on accident.
Madam Rosmerta herself came over to the table almost immediately and set down three butterbeers. Hermione cringed inwardly at the expense and the sad state of the dwindling funds in her purse before offering up the coins.
Rosmerta, however, shooed the money away and placed the coins back into Hermione's still-outstretched hand. "Your money is no good here, my dear," Rosemerta said with a happy trill. "Not after all the good you've done for us, I assume you're meeting the boys?"
Hermione could only nod, not sure what just transpired.
"Good," Rosmerta said with a satisfied nod to the head. "I'll be bringing your favorites along, you just get comfortable and I'll usher them back here before anyone catches a glimpse. You leave everything to me, my dear."
Hermione nodded again mutely and with a grin Rosmerta went back to the kitchen and rattled off their favorite dishes to the cook, which happened to be quite an array of food. Hermione was just trying to get her emotions in check over the barmaid's kindness when two familiar figures shadowed over her little table.
Hermione jumped up from her chair and threw her arms around both Harry and Ron, standing on tip-toe to do it.
"What a welcome," Ron said with a grin. "Miss us?"
"Very much," Hermione said, releasing them from her embrace. "Hogwarts simply isn't the same without you two."
"Does that mean you're finally giving up this mad plan to finish school?" Ron asked in his usual tackless manner.
Hermione seated herself and waited for them to do the same before she replied. "I was hoping to finish," she said with a frown. "But it appears my parents have cut all financial support to me as long as I live in the wizarding world."
Silencing the two men's questions with a wave of her hand, Hermione launched into the cliff-notes version of what had transpired the day before. She only gave the cliff-notes due to the fact that she fully intended to omit any mention of Draco Malfoy and his sudden and unexplained habit of mercilessly inserting himself into her every day life. She wasn't even sure how to describe it other than the paranoid feeling of hunted prey.
"Hermione, if finishing is really that important to you, you know I would give you the money." Harry told her in an almost hurt voice, as though he was upset she hadn't asked him already.
"I would never ask that of you, Harry," Hermione said quickly.
"You don't have to ask," Harry said with a smile. "I would be happy to do it."
"Wait," Ron interrupted Hermione before she could reply. "I thought we didn't want Hermione fooling around with Hogwarts anymore?" He shot a mutinous look at Harry, and in doing so missed the same glare he was receiving from Hermione.
"Hermione is an adult and can do whatever she likes," Harry said simply.
"Thank you, Harry," Hermione said quickly before Ron could interject again and dig himself that proverbial hole he was so fond of. "And I really appreciate your offer, I really do. I plan on speaking with McGonagall this evening after dinner. Perhaps she will be able to help me work something out."
"McGonagall would never chuck you out of school," Harry said, echoing Draco's sentiments from the day before.
"It's just humiliating," Hermione confessed. She grew quiet as Rosmerta bustled up to the table and served them their food and another round of butterbeers on the house all the while pushing Ron and Harry's money back at them like she had done to Hermione.
Hermione took a deep drink and let the liquid warm her. "It's just that...this is my life now, a life I fought damn hard to keep. Yet how do I turn my back on my family?"
"Seems like they turned their backs on you," Ron said in a moment of sensitivity. "Seems to me that they really have no idea how important and special their daughter has become to wizardkind."
Hermione looked at Ron with wide eyes while Harry make a small choking sound in the back of his throat.
"Water," Harry said, and sprang up as though her were on fire into the general direction of the bar.
Hermione looked at Ron in surprise as he filled Harry's barely-vacated seat closer to Hermione. "I want another chance," he said to her without preamble.
Hermione looked on in muted horror as he took her hand.
"I've had a lot of time to think this week," he said. "And Harry helped me understand a few things about muggles and why you are so insistent about this Hogwarts thing."
"Ron," Hermione tried to interrupt but Ron waved her off.
"Just listen, Hermione," Ron said pleadingly. "Our relationship got off on the wrong foot. We were scared and our emotions were running high. You know I care about you, and you deserve better than how I treated you, how I'vealways treated you. I just want another chance to show you how good we could be together. What do you say?"
Hermione couldn't actually say anything. A lump had formed in the back of her throat and she had a hard time inhaling. When she walked away from Ron after they fought the last time she had planned on continuing to walk and assumed Ron felt the same. The thing was, Hermione loved Ron, she couldn't imagine a life without him in it. When they added romance to their relationship Hermione felt like it was forced, this romance with Ron was strange and foreign and more often than not the comments he made without thinking enraged her more than they ever had before. Not to mention she was still sore with him over the fight they had over Hogwarts that halted their young relationship in the first place.
"Ron," Hermione said quietly. "I love you, probably more than you know, but I don't know how well we would do together. I'm afraid that we're really not ready for romance, I don't know what sort of future our friendship would have if we tried to force it."
Ron's lips pursed in a tight line, surprisingly enough, however, he did not look upset or angry, simply determined. He seemed to come to some sort of internal conclusion and his face relaxed and he gave her an easy smile.
"We don't have to force anything," he told her. "Let's just see where things take us." He then leaned over to kiss her.
"Ron, you're not listening," Hermione admonished and gently pushed him away while leaning back. "I'm not ready to revisit our romantic relationship," she told him again. "That means kissing as well."
Hermione thought she might be going a little daft from all the bewildering events of late, for she was sure she saw one of the candle flames at another empty corner booth flicker like it had been disturbed and a soft swear word come from that general direction. She shook herself a little and took a deep breath.
"Are you okay?" Ron asked with some concern.
"I'm fine," Hermione replied. "How are you? Are you terribly upset with me?"
"My pride is slightly wounded," Ron said with a sad smile. "But neither of us are going anywhere. I don't plan on meeting anyone in training and my only competition at Hogwarts is Neville. I can live with that until you're finally out of there."
Hermione grinned uncomfortably. Her first instinct was to be cross that Ron thought no one would be interested in her at school, but she then realized that Ron simply assumed Hermione wouldn't be interested in the classmates she had always gone to school with, as she never showed any signs before. The truth was, this entire conversation simply wasn't supposed to have happened. Ron was completely in the right, they had rushed into an emotionally-driven relationship after years of playing tug-of-war with one another. The circumstances surrounding the initial spark of their romance was desperate and terrifying and exciting, but it wasn't enough to build a real relationship on. Even if Ron could possibly learn to keep his ruder comments to himself Hermione was sure he would never really get her, not the way she needed.
But she didn't know that. Maybe they had a future, maybe Hermione would eventually marry into the family that she had grown to love as much as her own, a family that would accept her. She wouldn't have to worry about having magical children that would upset her parents. She wouldn't have to live in two worlds anymore if her family completely disowned her. A life with Ron would be simple and it would be as easy as breathing. It was also a decision she refused to take lightly. She was still healing, as Harry and Ron were, maybe after Hogwarts Hermione's feeling wouldn't resemble an anxiety attack waiting to happen or an emotional wrecking ball waiting to destroy everything she loved.
Hermione felt Ron's eyes still on her and she gave him a small smile. "Thank you for that," she told him. "Let's just relax and enjoy each other's company. We have all the time in the world to make more important decisions." She grinned and then leaned out of the booth. "You can come back now, Harry, the coast is clear."
Harry came back to the table with a sheepish grin, holding a tray with three small glasses. "I ordered firewhiskey before I heard Hermione's answer," he said apologetically. "But I think a toast is necessary in any case."
"To what are we toasting?" Hermione asked curiously.
"Us," Harry said simply. "Friendship. Innocence. Trolls. Chess games. Rouge potion brewing. Murderous professors. Dragon riding. Hermione's fantastic handbag. Still being here after all of it. Still being here together."
"Oh Harry," Hermione murmured with tears in her eyes.
"Old age is making you soft," Ron said with a laugh and handed Hermione a drink off the tray.
"To us," Harry said, smiling at his to best friends.
"To us," they all repeated, and the gentle tink of glass echoed softly in their small corner booth.